Six weeks of demonstrations in the Palestinian camps in Lebanon following the actions of the Lebanese Minister of Labor, Camille Abu Suleiman, under the framework of organizing foreign workers in Lebanon, were able to post the file to a cabinet session, which, unfortunately, was under the pretext of preserving the powers of the Minister of Labor absent from that session, to hold a session Others The file is referred to a committee headed by Prime Minister Saad Hariri and a number of ministers.
It was very clear that the Minister of Labor may want to embarrass the committee and politically restrict it, by saying that its decisions should not be at the expense of the interest of the Lebanese employee, stressing that the action plan is a red line, and that his powers will not be affected, and is also based on the positive handling of the Hezbollah minister in the government. So is the balance of the “employee” of the Lebanese employee, as understood by the minister’s words, limited only to his procedures, and does the Palestinian really crowd the Lebanese in the labor market, and does Hezbollah’s calm use of handling the issue through which the minister wants to send a political message to the Palestinians?
Perhaps some assume that the Palestinian does not want to apply the law, but rather the opposite is true, because the crisis of the Palestinian presence in Lebanon is that it is at the level of the view and dealing is not legally settled, as it is sometimes a refugee and a foreign stage.
Since Lebanon does not offer the Palestinian refugee – as other countries that have embraced Palestinian asylum and as international law stipulates – any rights to health, education, housing and living, the Palestinian manages his affairs through work, and UNRWA provides relief matters that include education and health modestly, and organizations’ offers Foreign governmental and non-governmental.
Accordingly, the Palestinian was treated as a “refugee”, a derogatory rights, and entered the Lebanese labor market, whether as a worker or employee in the private sector, but what is paradoxical as a “foreigner” is not allowed to work in many professions, because the Palestinian lacks the ability to achieve the “reciprocity” law applied to foreigners He prohibited many professions reaching the limits of the 70 professions, but he practiced them in institutions informally and with low wages for the Lebanese.
In the year 2005, the Palestinians were allowed to practice professions that were prohibited to him under Article Three of the Ministerial Resolution issued by the Minister of Labor, but many professions remained prohibited by the requirements of reciprocity of up to 36 professions, including medicine, engineering, law, and others, according to a study conducted by the Research Committee UNRWA’s Labor and Development Market in 2015.
In 2010, the Lebanese parliament passed two pregnancy laws number 128 and 129, according to which the condition for reciprocity was abolished, and the work permit fee became free of charge, and it also received end-of-service compensation, but it was deprived of sickness and maternity funds, and family benefits despite its deduction from its salary, and a condition remained Benefiting from end-of-service indemnity, subject to possession of work permits and social security registration.
For two years, the Lebanese Working Group on Palestinian Refugee Issues, formed within the framework of the Lebanese-Palestinian Dialogue Committee, issued a document in 2017 entitled “A unified Lebanese vision for Palestinian refugee issues in Lebanon”, signed by all the balanced Lebanese parties.
That document included several key recommendations that the group had submitted to former Prime Minister Tammam Salam. These are detailed proposals regulating the application of Law 128 and 129 and drafting and adopting an agreement with the Agency “UNRWA” that confirms the right of the Lebanese state to see and coordinate with the agency without any consequent transfer of any of the agency’s responsibilities and tasks to the state or its involvement in it, and to develop the work of the Dialogue Committee In addition to implementing a comprehensive census of the Palestinian refugees, which was initiated by the Dialogue Committee in cooperation with the Lebanese and Palestinian Central Bureau of Statistics.
Unfortunately, this vision was not implemented due to the faltering political conditions in Lebanon, except for the census of the Palestinian refugee population in Lebanon, so the number reached 174 thousand, and this number has caused controversy in Lebanon among the various political forces, despite the approval of the Council of Ministers.
However, the Palestinian continued to practice many “permissible and prohibited” professions, because the labor ministers did not strictly apply the law to the Palestinian due to the specificity of his condition, and as a forced refugee in Lebanon he could not return to his country.
But what is the gravity of what is currently going on? How does the Palestinian view him, which led to the demonstration?
It is clear that the Minister of Labor Kamil Abu Suleiman woke up after 70 years of Palestinian employment and employment, and the Lebanese market was filled with many professions and jobs that the Palestinians continued to exercise for many years within the institutions owned by Lebanese, without a work permit.
Within the framework of the so-called plan to combat foreign workers in Lebanon, the Palestinian is considered a foreigner and not a refugee, and therefore the Palestinian employee will turn into an unemployed, either because he is practicing a prohibited profession and he will not be given a work permit and will be fined physically if the employer insists on his employment, or stipulates obtaining an employment contract In the professions and specializations permitted by the institution in which the Palestinian works to obtain a work permit. This will not be done by Lebanese employers, as it entails requirements for Palestinian employment and employment.
Indeed, it is surprising that the Lebanese Minister of Labor promotes the action plan to find jobs for Lebanese youth, forgetting that perhaps the number of Lebanese youth who migrated from Lebanon until the year 2014 according to the International Information is 1.3 million young people. According to a study conducted by Saint Joseph University and documented by a study conducted by the Lebanese Observatory for the Rights of Workers and Employees, the number of migrants from Lebanon from 1975 to 2001 reached 600,000.
Another study conducted by the Lebanese Observatory for Workers and Employees Rights also states that the unemployment rate in the year 2010, that is, before the Syrian crisis, reached 34% among the youth category that ranges between 15-24 years, and that the number of work permits registered in the Ministry of Labor amounted to 210 thousand 75% in the service Homes.
All these figures indicate that Lebanon has been a country of immigration for its people since 1975 for various reasons, and that the failure of successive governments and the accumulation of economic crises will not be solved by the problem of excluding the Palestinian from work, and he who works according to ineffective occupations does not compete with the Lebanese, but rather the opposite is true, because the Palestinian enters The hard currency to this country is either through UNRWA, governmental and non-governmental organizations, and the money that the Palestinian factions spend on their partisans and their social and media institutions, as well as the money that Palestinian communities abroad transfer to their families in Lebanon, and all of this money comes from abroad and is in the interest of For an economic cycle.
The measures of the Ministry of Labor raise big question marks in terms of timing, to start after the Bahrain workshop according to the American-Israeli plan to end the Palestinian issue, on top of which is the issue of refugees.
As for the committee formed under the chairmanship of Prime Minister Hariri, will it work according to what he wrote in the magazine “Bridges” of the Lebanese-Palestinian Dialogue Committee in the issue January 2, 2019 under the title: “Respecting the right of refugees to a decent life”? That there is no room for resettlement or any measure that is totally inconsistent with giving the refugee brothers their human rights. Rather, granting them these rights provides us together and together with the strength necessary to face the difficulties we face on various levels, whether political, economic or living, so we can restore the power of healthy bilateral brotherly relations. ”
When does the application?